6.-Anthon's Series of Classical Works for Schools and Colleges. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1839.

Ir is with pleasure that we call the attention of our readers to these uniform editions of Latin and Greek Classics. The Editor, Dr. Charles Anthon, is Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages in Columbia College, New York, and brings to the work which he has undertaken an established and high reputation as a scholar, and much experience as an Instructor. The plan proposed is to give editions of all the authors usually read in our schools and colleges, together with such elementary and subsidiary works as may be needed by the classical student, either at the commencement, or at particular stages of his career. The advantages promised in the announcement of this plan are, the latest and best texts; accurate commentaries, putting the student and the instructor in possession of the opinions of the best philologists, together with all such subsidiary information as may serve, not only to throw light upon the meaning of the author, but also to give rise in the young student to habits of correct thinking, and the foundation of a correct taste.

Six volumes of the series are already published, and have met with so much favor in this country, and some of them in England-as to encourage both the editor and the publishers to proceed with their plan. The works already published are Select Orations of Cicero, Sallust, and Caesar. These are classics properly so called. The remaining volumes are a Grammar of the Greek Language Prosody of the same,-and a Grammar with Lessons and a primary Lexicon.

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We may not claim for these books the highest possible perfection, and not having been ourselves engaged, for many years, in the work of classical instruction, we shall leave it to some more competent hand to furnish such criticisms of these productions of the learned editor as the interests of classical literature may require.. It may however be proper to remark that, in the opinion of some of our best scholars, Prof. Anthon has not kept pace, in his Grammar, with the advancements recently made in the knowledge of Greek. In this department of his work, there is doubtless room for some important improvement.

It has also been objected by some teachers that so copious an array of English notes as are contained in these editions of Cicero, Caesar, etc. is in danger of bribing the student into habits of intellectual sloth. To this it is replied, on behalf of the plan of the editor, that the part of the series which contains the text-books for schools must, in order to be at all useful, have a more extensive supply of annotations than the volumes intended for College Lectures; and that when these last shall make their appearance, the system of commenting adopted in them will not fail to meet the approbation of SECOND SERIES, VOL. II. NO. III,

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all. We think there is good sense in this remark, and that the practical wisdom of the editor is favorably exhibited in thus adapting the different portions of the series to the different stages of advancement of the students for whom each is intended.

As a whole this series of school-classics may be regarded as superior to any similar works before published, and as a most needed and valuable contribution to the cause of classical education; and we cheerfully concur in the following remarks of the Rev. Dr. Humphrey, which we quote from a long catalogue of commendatory notices from Presidents and Professors of Colleges and others, appended by the publishers to one of their volumes." Professor Anthon deserves and will receive the thanks of the public for the labor which he has so judiciously and successfully bestowed upon Sallust, Caesar and Cicero. The explanatory notes or commentaries are more copious and comprehensive than those of any other edition I have seen, and much better adapted to the wants of young students. Among the most valuable of these notes are those which direct attention to the beautiful uses of the moods and tenses, and explain the delicate shades of meaning and the peculiar beauties that depend upon them, which our language often expresses imperfectly, and with difficulty, and which young learners rarely regard. The explanations of the force and meaning of the particles are also very useful. The historical, geographical, and other indexes are highly valuable, furnishing the student with felicitous illustrations of the text, and much general information."

We may add that the typographical execution of these volumes is excellent, which is a merit by no means to be disregarded or lightly esteemed in books designed for classical instruction.

7.-Sermons by the late Rev. Edward D. Griffin, D. D. to which is prefixed a Memoir of his Life. By William B. Sprague, D. D. Minister of the Second Presbyterian Congregation in Albany. New York: John S. Taylor, 1839. Vols. I. and II. 8vo. pp. 597, 596.

These volumes are beautifully executed by the publisher. We open them with lively recollections of the splendid subject of the Memoir which they contain. It was our privilege in youth to enjoy his friendship and counsel, and occasionally to listen to the strains of his peculiar eloquence. He stands conspicuous among the early objects of our admiration, and we cannot divest ourselves of the impressions of his greatness. But, with him, though we trust it was "the whole of death to die," yet even in regard to this world, it was not "the whole of life to live." Dr. Griffin has left upon the age and the generation which he served living impressions of his intellect, his eloquence and his piety, which would have remained and been

in some measure perpetuated, even if his sermons had perished with the voice that delivered them, and his pen had left nothing on record. It is well, however, that so many of the productions of his capacious mind and glowing affections have been preserved in a tangible form, that the impressions of the living man may thus be repeated upon the generations to come, and constitute their due portion of the history of the church and the country which are bereaved by his death. In a brief notice of Dr. Griffin's Sermons, as here published, it will not be expected that we shall enter upon a critical examination of their characteristics and merits.* Nor is it at all necessary, while the distinguished talents and impressive eloquence of their author are fresh in the remembrance of so large a portion of our readers, that we commend them as deeply instructive, and as splendid productions of the kind,-worthy of a place in every library, as among the very best sermons in the English language. The number of sermons in these volumes is sixty, most of which are on subjects of a highly practical character, and constitute an invaluable legacy to posterity, while his biographer informs us that "there are, still remaining in Manuscript, Sermons enough to make one or two additional volumes, all of which have been re-written in his later years, and have undergone his finishing touch."

The writer of the Memoir, Dr. Sprague, has given us the character of Dr. Griffin, with great candor, and in a style worthy of himself and of his subject. This part of the first volume occupies 270 pages, and is composed of a rich selection of extracts from the private journal of Dr. G. and of letters written to friends and members of his family, describing some exceedingly touching scenes, and exhibiting in a most interesting light the characteristics of his piety as well as of his mind. His peaceful and happy death and the state of mind with which he approached the hour of his triumph, are tenderly and graphically described by his daughter, Mrs. Smith; and the whole is concluded with a "general estimate of his character and influences" by the author of the Memoir, which strikes us as discriminating and just, leaving the venerated subject of the whole to live in our recollections as one of the brightest lights of his age, and honouring the Providence of God by which he was fitted for the wide sphere of influence and usefulness to which he was advanced.

8.-Sermons to a Country Congregation. By Augustus William

Hare, A. M. Late Fellow of New College and Rector of Alton Barnes. First American, from the Third London Edition. New York: Appleton and Co. 1839. pp. 497. 8vo. The number of sermons contained in this volume is fifty-six. They are short and written in a familiar parochial style, and are

*This we trust may be done in a more extended review, in some future No. of the Repository.

addressed with great plainness and directness to a plain people. They are of a practical character, exhibiting the common topics of the gospel in a rich and attractive variety of aspects, and present to the reader much of the sincere milk of the word. They remind one of the Sermons of Walker and of Burder, and are perhaps equally well suited to be read with profit in religious meetings and conferences, their style being in a remarkable degree faultless and their instructions simple and easily understood. The author, however, is a minister of the church of England, and occasionally alludes to the forms and usages of that church in a manner which will render his sermons less acceptable for common and social use in some other denominations in this country. We observe also that in one of the Visitation Sermons," near the end of the volume, he commends a "national religion," as the only "security for the quiet and civilization of a people, or for the strength and solidity of a commonwealth."-In the American edition, it would have been well if these few peculiarities, which are adapted to English usages and views, had been omitted. But these exceptions are of minor importance and the general spirit of the book will commend itself to evangelical Christians of all classes.

9.-Algic Researches, comprising Inquiries respecting the Mental Characteristics of the North American Indians. First Series. Indian Tales and Legends. In two volumes. By Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1839. pp. 248, 244.

Mr. Schoolcraft is favorably known to the reading public as the author of several Journals of travels through remote portions of our Northern and Western frontiers, as well as by his occasional contributions to our periodical literature. Having been for the last twenty years in the employment of the United States Government, as Superintendent of Indian Affairs on the N. W. boundaries, having been associated in many of his inquiries, with Gen. Cass, Mr. Trowbridge and others, to whom we are indebted for several scientific notices of Indian character and habits, and being also connected by marriage with a refined and educated descendant of an aboriginal tribe, Mr. S. may be relied on as possessing advantages for investigating and making known the mental and other characteristics of the North American Indians, superior to those of any other man now living. We have therefore waited with interest for the appearance of the two volumes above named; and after a cursory perusal of several of these "Tales and Legends," we are happy to assure our readers that our expectations are not disappointed. They exhibit some curious and interesting traits of Indian character, which have been little known and appreciated even by those who have been most familiar with the

history of their external habits and their exploits in war. Their legends introduce us into the interior of their consciousness, and excite our deep sympathies in their degradation and darkness, while we are charmed with the traces of intellect, and of the moral sense, which are exhibited in some of their curious speculations and wild and in coherent imaginings. There are in some of their conceptions a refinement and beauty, which ill accord with our common impressions of the savage mind and heart. That they are cruel in war, unrelenting in their private resentments, and vindictive against those by whom they have been injured, is the result not of a nature more cruel and unfeeling than that of other races of men, but of the darkness in which they have been left to grope for so many ages. It is the natural consequence of their ignorance of the truth as it is revealed to us in the Scriptures, of their ever varying and erroneous conceptions of the attributes and requirements of the Great Spirit, the "Unknown God," whom they worship, and of their superstitious, not to say religious, belief of a system of falsehood, which is incorporated with all their modes of thinking.

But we have neither time nor room to express much that we feel on this subject. The two volumes before us seem to have been compiled with much care and candor by the author, and we cannot but regard them as a highly valuable contribution to the literature of the age. They will be sought by the learned as affording a new and instructive lesson in the science of anthropology, by the philanthropic as presenting new evidences of Indian susceptibilities of moral impressions, and by the multitude for the amusement they afford, by their novelty and eccentricity. As a whole, these volumes strike us as more entertaining than the "Arabian Nights," and some of the conceptions which they contain of the spiritual world are hardly surpassed in the Mythology of any of the ancient heathen nations, while their conjurations, enchantments and metamorphoses scarcely fall below those of Ovid, in the strangeness and wit of their conception; and some of them convey moral lessons quite as much to the point. As is indicated in the title of these volumes, they are presented to the public as the first of a series of volumes on the distinctive opinions and the intellectual character of the Indians, their mythology, their hieroglyphics, music, poetry, the grammatical structure of their languages, etc., for all which the author possesses ample materials, and which it is his purpose to publish, provided the public shall manifest a sufficient interest in the subject to encourage him to persevere in his undertaking. We trust his best anticipations in this respect will be fully realized.